AVEN Calendar - watch this space for progress reports!

[Bestatued Head]

I want October. I'll be an a-ghost. *does feeble groans*

[Live R Perfect]

If we're sticking to one AVENite per month, then this is how things stand:

January = Liverlicker

February = ????

March = ????

April = Juni321

May = ????

June = CatePerfect

July = Jayann

August = ????

September = Aury

October = Daphne

November = BOA

December = AVENguy

The front cover could have pictures of AVEN meetups on it.

Now I've been thinking (whoa, easy there...) that the size area we can use for images is probably way too big for a single photo. I mean, I can enlarge any photos you send me, but they will start to lose resolution and look kinda crappy.

Soooo, I was wondering how people felt about having multiple images and possibly some text on the page, kinda like a profile of some sort? You could, say, choose a quote that is particularly apt, or have images on there that are relevant to your interests.

I guess what I have in my mind is like a montage for each person, combining photos, illustrations and text. If this is unclear to you, then I could get started on my own and then post it on Fotki to give you an idea.

Any comments?

[Cate Perfect]

I LIKE it! :D

Cate

[bard of aven]

Works for me.

We need 13 images, 1 for cover, 1 for each month, each 11 by 8.5 inches (sorry, it's a US of A company, and we still use the British system....), suggested dpi is 150 to 300. Image size at 150 dpi, they say, should be 1724 by 1350. I guess double that for 300, which I think we should aim at. I get an error message when I try to upload images over 4,000 in either direction.

boa

[Live R Perfect]

Thanks Bard :)

I'll get cracking on my own month, then!

If anyone else wants to start e-mailing me photos, then please do. It might be a good idea to give me a general summary of the things you are 'into', and anything else you'd particularly like me to include in your montage. Also any preferences you have about how you are represented - it doesn't have to be a photo if you'd prefer to be rendered as a drawing / anime character, etc., but I will still need a photo to work from!

[dabishop]

Excellent ideas all -- I agree about not trying to make a single image fit the whole available space. The more free-form and individual the months (without getting too cluttered overall), the better.

And what the hey -- I'll claim August! Must be fate if it's gone this long without being taken (I was born in August, and so were all three of my siblings. Freakin' holiday season.) I'll e-mail you or send links to likely historical photo evidence and revealing biographical texty bits.

[Live R Perfect]

Excellent, Bishop! :D *Adds Bishop to the list* I look forward to your e-mail...

Roll up! Roll up! Only three months still available on the chance-of-a-lifetime AVEN calendar! Get 'em whilst they're hot!

January = Liverlicker

February = ???? (could be you?!)

March = ???? (whyever not?!)

April = Juni321

May = ???? (you know you want to!!)

June = CatePerfect

July = Jayann

August = Bishopsheen

September = Aury

October = Daphne

November = BOA

December = AVENguy

[fluffy_hime]

OOH! Can Fluffy be in it? Not me...her: http://public.fotki.com/FluffyHime/petsies...ffypresent.html

Her birthday's in February..

[Live R Perfect]

I don't know what other people here think, but personally I don't think that Fluffy (the dog) should get an entire page to herself (no matter how lovely she is!). It would be OK if Fluffy_Hime was on the page with her though....

whats the concensus of opinion on this matter?

Won't you reconsider being part of the calendar yourself?

[bard of aven]

I've got to go with LL her. Sorry, FH.

boa

[Jayann]

Same here. I'm far more interested in seeing other users themselves. Otherwise I'd just get a calendar with doggies in it. Sorry.

[fluffy_hime]

Oh, fine. I'll just add her to every scene on my own calendar. ^_^

[Live R Perfect]

Cate just suggested to me that it would be fun if people who want to be on the calendar supplied a photograph of themselves wearing an item of AVEN merchandise. Its not mandatory, but it would be great to see, don't y'all think? :)

[Live R Perfect]

Hey hey, people!! There's still 3 months up for grabs here!

Get 'em while they're 'ot!

[Gorax]

But my plan is not to share the store proprietor login info with anyone but AVENguy. Sorry it that seems haughty or snooty or egotistical, but my name, personal info and tax info are stored in that account, and I am very private about that sort of stuff.

That's plain common sense right there. No need to be sorry :P

Anyway. I would like to be a part of this, but I don't have a picture that is good enough. Sure, I have some good enough ones for the Internet, but a calendar is another thing entirely.

And just curious . . . Who will buy this besides us?

[Live R Perfect]

Erm... I doubt that anyone will buy this except us, unless there are people out there who just go round collecting copies of every calendar that ever existed!

It had crossed my mind that maybe this thread shouldn't be in the VEO forum just because of that fact, but I guess it can still be used as a visibility tool by those who are willing to put up their calendar somewhere where others can see it. Hopefully the calendar would get across the idea that we are all different kinds of people, and putting a group of faces to the word 'asexuality' might help people perceive it as being more 'real'.

So which month would you prefer, Gorax? :D

[VivreEstEsperer]

Wow, an asexual calendar, cool!

I want February! That's my birthday month.

I don't have many pictures but I'm sure I can come up with one.

I think that as long as it's a picture of us then it shouldn't matter if it's asexual related, cus the purpose of the calendar to me is to have a calendar filled with asexual people, plain and simple... just to be able to look at the calendar and see us all and think "woah! they're like me!"

I think that we should definitely have more than one person per page IF more people than months express interest: I think we should have as many people as possible, we want to see the diversity in the asexual community!

I think we should have people's AVEN screennames for ID purposes as well as real names if people want to give them.

And I think we should definitely have the CT AVEN meetup picture as a full page. That picture is so good, the one with all of us on the front steps of the library, and it would look so much better as a full page than anything else we have. And there's so many of us in it, relatively speaking. Most calendars have the cover also be one of the calendar months and I think it would be fun to have the AVEN Meetup pic as one of my months.

If we do a page with many pictures, both for purposes of inclusiveness and the fact that single photos are kinda small to take up a whole page as someone mentioned, then I'm envisioning a picture and then like in bold type underneath "Screenname, name" and that would be really cool.

So what , do we totally design the picture pages ourselves and then give it to them to produce? That's a really cool service!

Kate

eh..and please email me rather than PMing if anything important happens that I need to know about but I haven't managed to get to AVEN in a while... kgoldfie@goucher.edu ...thanks.

[Guest Trix4theRabbits]

I'd be willing to do something....AND I can do my own photo-montage too if it'll help any...I got photoshop wrapped around my finger :D

[Live R Perfect]

You're quite welcome to do your own montage if you like, Trix. As long as its all about you and it meets the required size and resolution. Which month would you like?

Kate: I think we should put meetup photos on the front cover, and have individual members on each of the months. Ideally, yes, we would have more than one member per page. But at the moment I'm having trouble filling the pages on the basis of just one per page. You just can't get the models these days! *tut*

[Live R Perfect]

Trix: Before you jump into making your own montage, I'll have to let you know about exact sizes, resolution and the generic parts of each calendar page that I plan to use to keep some continuity from one to the next (Though the layout and content of each page WILL be different overall)

[Live R Perfect]

OK Trix...

The actual image size when printed will be 11" across and 8.5" tall, but we have to prepare them slightly larger than that to allow for any slight variations in the printing / trimming process (full bleed). So we have to make them 11.5" by 9" overall.

Now for the generics.... I want there to be a solid black banner across the bottom 1.25" - this is where our Membername, Real name (optional), Age, D.O.B (optional) and Location will go. Its probably best if you leave this bit for me to do, as it's hard to tell you the exact font and layer styles I have used for this text. We'll figure that out later!

The rest of the area is yours, but bear in mind that anything within 0.25" of the edge is likely to be trimmed off. I suggest you create a new semi-transparent layer with this trimming area on it just so you can see what you're working with at all times.

Other than that its up to you... oh, except that you should work at 300dpi!

When you've finished, save as a PNG and either e-mail it to me (if possible - I will be upgrading my hotmail account soon to accept larger attachments) or otherwise I'll give you an address that you can post it to on disk. I'll whack the text on the bottom, check everything is OK, and we're sorted!!

Have fun!! :D

[VivreEstEsperer]

just tell us, or rather, email me, if possible, when you need the pics!!

a montage would be a cool idea...hmm.... i just figured out how to use our school's scanner, so i could scan a whole bunch of pictures of myself in and then play with them to make a ...montage thingy...and that would be kinda fun! hmm....

Kate

[VivreEstEsperer]

Hehe...can we do baby pictures in our montage? :)

hmm...and I have no idea what a PNG is.... or most of the other stuff you talked about...so how about i get some pictures put them in a neat design and give them to you to figure out the size specs? hmm...

Kate

[Live R Perfect]

Anyone who isn't confident with Photoshop is probably best off just scanning all the pics they want in their montage and e-mailing them to me as separate images along with any other information or personal specs they want included. This is because if you arrange the images together yourself and send the result to me, and I have to enlarge the whole thing to fit the page size then it might start to look a bit pixellated.

But by all means have a go at doing the montage, as you could mail a copy of this to me also to give me an idea of what you want .

[Live R Perfect]

HEY!! Lets not forget the CALENDAR!!

All the months are provisionally reserved at the moment as follows:

January = Liverlicker

February = Vivre

March = Trix

April = Juni321

May = Gorax

June = CatePerfect

July = Jayann

August = Bishopsheen

September = Aury

October = Daphne

November = BOA

December = AVENguy

Front cover could be a montage of the best meetup pics along with the beloved AVEN symbol....?

Only just over 8 months before 2005, so I'd better get cracking!!

Please send me some pictures!!

[dabishop]

*wakes from long stupor induced by travel and the violent shift of seasons*

Right away, cap'n!

[VivreEstEsperer]

*writes it down in her assignment book*

[Live R Perfect]

Well, Bishop is on top of things - I have a mass of images from him to work with already! Watch this space...

[VivreEstEsperer]

ooh, i love when people say "watch this space", it sounds so exciting... lol.

[Jayann]

I sent you twenty photos, Liver. All Julie. All the time. July will be one of the least funnest months of the year! :D